Channels & viewing

[RokuTakashi]

Hi, @shaunbuk 

Thanks for the post!

We see that you are having the same issue as reported by the OP in the thread. We'd like to know more about your experience with the issue so we can understand it further and proceed with the necessary steps for a resolution.

• What specific behavior does the issue show with the BBC iPlayer?
• What Roku device you are having issues with?
• When did you first encounter the issue?
• What was the response from the BBC iPlayer support team regarding this matter?

We'll keep an eye on your response, and continue to assist you moving forward.

Best wishes,
Kash

[wmckie]

Hi everyone,

I have made changes and I’ve managed to restore the BBC iPlayer on my ROKU device, however I have no idea what the problem is and why it occurred and I think the solution may be unique to my home setup.

What I’ve done to restore iPlayer on my ROKU is to change the way the device connects to my home network. My network consists of a router supplied by my broadband service provider (TalkTalk) which has wired Ethernet connections and dual band Wi-Fi capability, in addition to that I have a network access point (Netgear EX6410) wired to the router. This setup means I have two Wi-Fi networks, one for upstairs provided by the router and one for the ground floor with the Netgear EX6410.

When I initially installed the ROKU (over a year ago) I connected it to the Netgear access point but found this was unreliable as it would occasionally switch from a 5GHz connection to a slower 2.4GHz connection so I changed the ROKU to use the router Wi-Fi and that has been fine until recently.

As an experiment I switched the ROKU back to the Netgear access point and was very surprised to find that iPlayer worked, I went back to the router Wi-Fi and confirmed that it still failed. So now I’ve got my ROKU connected to the Netgear access point and have disabled the 2.4GHz band to prevent being switched to a slower connection.

It’s very bizarre that iPlayer only fails when connected to the router Wi-Fi especially since my other iPlayer capable devices worked fine and on the ROKU all other streaming services were unaffected and ultimately all services go through the router. So it’s a problem with the router Wi-Fi somehow affecting only iPlayer on the ROKU … very strange indeed.

Thanks

Walter

[shaunbuk]

Thanks for coming back to this Walter.

So just to get the behaviour out of the way, this is what happens. When you start iPlayer it normally displays a simple splash screen for a couple of seconds before a second (slightly different, with a background gradient) splash screen shows followed by a page to select the viewer's profile and the rest of the app. With the bug, the first splash screen displays for many minutes before the screen goes completely black. You may or may not be able to get out of this state with the home button. The second splash never displays.

However (and this maybe mirrors Walter's experience) I've now found this to be intermittent. On Friday evening iPlayer was working fine - before stopping again at the weekend.

I also have another identical Roku downstairs that has never shown this defect.

I have communicated all this to the iPlayer support team and they are going to try and reproduce the problem.

So, while my network setup is not quite the same as Walter's, I do have a BT Smart hub 2 with a secondary extender 'disk' forming a mesh. I.e. they both have the same SSID.

I guess it is possible the problematic upstairs Roku may be jumping between access points or frequency in a similar way to what Walter is seeing.

Either way, other apps seem to cope and work fine. So certainly some odd behaviour of the iPlayer app!

Shaun

[wmckie]

Hello again,

Just thought I’d add some more information that might help.

The scenario that Shaun described is exactly what I experienced with the exception that at no time did the app fully start, although there were a couple of occasions when the app did progress a little further but still was unresponsive and the progress was very slow.

I mentioned previously that while iPlayer via ROKU was failing it was ok through the SkyQ box and my TV, both these devices are connected to my home network with wired Ethernet connections whereas the ROKU is Wi-Fi. It was this difference that prompted me to connect the ROKU to my Netgear access point, my thinking was that in doing this the router would “see” the ROKU as a wired device.

Another thing that I noticed is that during this period there was a small change to the way the ROKU launched apps. Up to this point when selecting an app a splash screen with the app logo would appear briefly and the app would start but for a while just prior to the splash screen a rectangular white information box would appear announcing that the app was loading. This would happen with all apps not just iPlayer. The situation currently is that this information box no longer appears.

Walter